Reader
Mail Redux
Dear Dustin,
Remember me from high school? What happened to your hair?
Sincerely,
Danielle
Danielle,
Of course I remember you -- thanks to the magic of alphabetical
order, we had to sit next to each other all the damn time,
didn’t we? As to what happened to my hair…
well, yeah I used to have a lot of it, and not so much
anymore. Sometime last June, I decided to thwart the natural
progression of things and I just buzzed it all off. Voila!
No more thinning hair, at least not obviously so. The
weird thing is, since I clipped it all off, it actually
looks like it’s starting to fill back in somewhat
-- hair reforestation of a sort. I couldn’t figure
out why in the hell that would happen, but then after
many hours of thought, I came across a good reason.
My hair used to be really, really thick. Tangled in knots
thick. Big, loopy, had-an-afro-of-dark-red-curls-in-fourth-grade
thick. So after years of growing like mad, my hair suddenly
became unable to support its own weight and strand-by-strand
started jumping off my head like red-colored lemmings.
So when I shaved it down to less than a quarter inch,
it didn’t have to support its own weight anymore,
and has since started to grow back in. I’m sure
I’m not the first to suffer hair loss because of
this reason -- I’m just the first of many people
to realize that they don’t grow decent “load-bearing”
hair. Just like cheaply constructed tract housing, it
lasts for about 20 years and then quickly begins to fall
apart. There goes the neighborhood.
~~~
Hey
Dustin,
How do you come up with your ideas? Why are you so weird?
Hope to hear from you,
Elizabeth
Liz,
To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how I come
up with my ideas. They just kind of appear every now and
then. It probably has something to do with the fact that
I didn’t have many friends nearby when I was growing
up, so I spent a lot of time trying to entertain myself.
I think as a result, my imagination survived the trip
to adulthood in pretty decent shape, and I still use it
to amuse myself when bored. So I get these little flashes
of insanity every now and then, and some of them are interesting
enough that I manage to turn them into the essays you
read here. Some months are better than others, which is
why I wish someone made an “Idea-a-Day” calendar
for my desk. You know, something that works like…
I’d
ask for one every Christmas.
~~~
Dustin,
Do you believe in astrology? It doesn’t really say
anything about it in your writing. I think you seem like
someone that would read his horoscope.
Thanks,
Dallas
Well, I dunno… I have a passing interest in the
whole deal, although I’m not sure how much of what’s
predicted in my horoscope I’d take at face value.
Although there was a recent one that I really latched
onto when I read it at Freewill Astrology (which is the
only one I ever really check. It’s weekly, so it’s
generally vague enough that I’ll run with it, but
the guy who writes them has a great knack for painting
metaphors and I’d read it just for that). It was
a long-term insight that said in November I’d be
“called on to raise some beautiful and benevolent
hell.” Now, I have no idea what that means, but
I can’t tell you how exciting that sounds to me.
Raise benevolent hell? What better words to grasp the
attention of the (sadly altruistic) world conqueror in
me? And that’s also a sign of what I am –
a Gemini. It’s my lot to be of two minds about everything,
from wanting to achieve a plan of world domination (yet
only so people will stop killing each other ), to what
kind of Chinese food to get. I had a 15 minute internal
debate earlier tonight over whether I was in the mood
for General Tso’s or sweet and sour pork. And is
it any wonder I can’t get around to that world domination
thing?
It really doesn’t matter if you buy into astrology
or not, it’s still of interest to see how people
with similar birthdays all do tend to share some personality
traits. For example, my girlfriend is a Leo (the lion,
don’t ya know?) and so are two of my close friends.
All three of them share a really… well-developed…
sense of self, personal pride and ego. And all three of
them like me. (Or at least, they used to. )
~~~
D-Grove,
That red head chick from American Pie? You’re in
love with HER? Why don’t you go after any supermodels,
you freaking wuss?
-
Dave
You know, I could be like every generic frat boy this
side of the Mississippi and prattle on about how I’d
“totally lay the wood to Carmen Electra,”
but my tastes lean more towards the “cute girl next
door” look. As evidence of watch catches my attention
the most, here is my current list of famous-types that
I think are super hot:
